


and i'm glowing

by ferryboatpeak



Series: mpreg jackrry [2]
Category: Dunkirk (2017) RPF, Harry Styles (Musician), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Except when I do, I don't write kidfic, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mpreg, Post Mpreg, Sexting, Timestamp, Weddings, and when i do i go all in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 13:20:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15220022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferryboatpeak/pseuds/ferryboatpeak
Summary: Four years later. A wedding, an engagement, and the new couple nobody expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to everybody who humored my transparent desire for somebody to ask me to write this bit of wedding/engagement fluff, and thanks to [@1degosuperego](http://1degosuperego.tumblr.com/) for having a beta read. also thanks to [@heauxforhoran](http://heauxforhoran.tumblr.com/) and [@myaimlessuniverse](http://myaimlessuniverse.tumblr.com) for the groomsman consult.
> 
> this timestamp is not going to make a ton of sense if you have not read the main work. proceed at your own risk.

From his spot at the altar, Jack can see Harry at the back of the sanctuary, bending down to whisper into Rory’s ear. Harry points past Rory, straight down the aisle, and gives him a gentle push between his shoulder blades.

Rory digs in his feet. His eyes shift, surveying the pews. Jack can see how tightly he’s clutching the pillow between his hands. Last night at the rehearsal, he’d done his job perfectly in two different walk-throughs. But a church full of wedding guests seems to be throwing him off.

Jack steps out of line and crouches down at the edge of the aisle. The cheap fabric of his rental tux tightens over his knees. “Come on,” he mouths at Rory, smiling encouragingly.

Rory takes a couple of cautious steps forward and stops. He looks back over his shoulder at Harry. “Go, go!” Harry whispers, flicking his fingers at him.

Jack beckons like he’s a third base coach waving a runner home. Rory starts down the aisle slowly, his head barely even with the swags of evergreen on the end of every other pew. (“Saturday after Christmas,” Barry had said, “everything’s already decorated for free.”) 

Jack was never a big Christmas person, not like Harry is, and he’s even less so now that the holiday still carries the shadow of four years ago. The Christmas season when he had Harry and their still-impending son, and then he didn’t. Jack doesn’t ever take them for granted, but he feels it most acutely at Christmas, when he remembers standing alone in his cold stocking feet on the deck at the Whiteheads’ house.

The conviction that nothing else could be that bad kept him hanging in there through a hundred pointless fights born of sleep deprivation and potty training. Through learning all of Harry’s less endearing idiosyncrasies, all of the things you’re supposed to know about somebody before you move in together or have a baby. Through the months of three people crammed into a one-bedroom apartment, before Jack dared to believe the arrangement might be long-term and suggested that they look at a bigger place, together.

He’s not sure what’s kept Harry hanging in there. For a while Jack felt confident in the shared conviction that no matter how excruciating parenting was, doing it together 100 percent of the time was better than the possibility of doing it alone even 50 percent of the time. But it’s less excruciating now. Rory’s old enough to have a conversation with, old enough to toss a ball to, old enough to split a basket of wings if Jack orders Rory’s half without sauce.

It’s easier to divide and conquer these days. Jack can travel for work without guilt. Harry can take a class or two every quarter, making steady progress toward his masters’ degree. Jack’s got football season tickets with Aneurin; Harry goes to weekend music festivals with Zayn. It’s all easy enough now that sometimes Jack has to tamp down the quiet fear that Harry could go out and reclaim what’s left of his 20s, if he wanted to. If it occurred to him.

Rory picks up speed and takes the last part of the aisle at a run. He veers off course at the very end, slamming into Jack and wrapping his scrawny arms tight around Jack’s neck. “Good job,” Jack whispers to him, briskly rubbing Rory’s back. Jack marvels, as always, at how compact he is, nothing but pointy bones and efficient muscle under the green velvet jacket of the suit Harry picked for him. As he disentangles Rory’s arms, he glances up to catch Harry’s eye down the length of the aisle. Harry’s watching them with his chin propped in his hand, his fingers obscuring his smile. The look in his eyes is familiar. It’s the same expression Jack feels crinkling his own face when he looks up from his laptop toward the other end of the couch and sees Rory curled up in Harry’s lap to read a book. Satisfaction at seeing his people, together, happy; incredulousness at how lucky he is.

He drops his eyes back to Rory. “Up, up.” Jack tugs at the pillow wilting from Rory’s grasp and repositions his hands until he’s holding it level in front of him. “Can you give it to Uncle Barry?”

Rory looks over his shoulder at the grooms and turns to hand the pillow over. Barry unties the pocket and scoops out the rings. He curls his fingers around them before extending his fist to Rory. “Good job, bro.” Rory returns the fistbump vehemently.

Barry shakes the rings and blows into his cupped hands, like he’s about to roll a seven. Over Barry’s shoulder, Jack can see Niall beaming. The priest relives Barry of the rings with an expression that suggests he’s taking a dangerous implement from a toddler. Then, realizing he doesn’t have a pocket, he hands them off to Fionn.

Jack sidesteps back into his spot between Fionn and Tom, guiding Rory to stand in front of him. Jack’s hands just reach his shoulders. Focused on keeping an almost-four-year-old quiet and stationary for the next twenty minutes, Jack only half pays attention to the prayers and the liturgy. The vows are straight out of the standard playbook -- in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live -- and Barry and Niall say them with smiles on their faces, fitting into the well-worn words as easy as they’ve fit together. 

Harry wouldn’t do it like that, Jack reflects. He’d wrinkle his nose in a small, polite way at the idea of any church’s established ceremony. Harry would want to write vows, come up with something unique to do justice to his hypersaturated emotions. He’d cry, too. Harry would definitely be a mess at their wedding. It’s not the first time Jack’s thought about it. Now that life no longer requires all of their energy just to get through through the next thing -- the next stomach bug, the next size of car seat, the next handful of cheddar bunnies ground into the carpet -- he occasionally lifts his head up from the daily grind and looks ahead, and wonders.

Harry’s never said anything, even as the two of them exchanged sideways glances in public and laughed in private about Barry and Niall’s quest for wedding planning loopholes to avoid spending money on anything that’s not a home improvement project. And because Harry hasn’t said anything, Jack’s passed on every opportunity to sidle up to the topic. Unpacking the groomsman rental box earlier in the week, with Harry fixing the buckles on the back of his vest:  _ If we get married can we not make the guys wear these awful tuxes?  _ Hearing Harry’s rings clack one by one onto the bathroom counter at the end of the day:  _ Would you still wear all of those if you had a wedding band? _ Watching Harry sleep in the curtain-filtered moonlight of their New Orleans hotel room:  _ If we had a honeymoon, would you want to go to Japan? _

Rory’s fidgeting and stepping back onto Jack’s toes by the time Barry and Niall kiss and take off down the aisle, hand in hand, giddy. Following in the line of groomsmen, with Rory by his side, Jack watches them over Fionn’s shoulder. Barry says something to Niall, talking even faster than usual, and Niall grins broadly and knocks his shoulder into Barry’s. Happiness spills off of them like a tipped bucket. Instinctively, Jack looks for Harry, wondering if he sees the same thing.  _ Look how happy they are. Why is it making me sad? _

Harry turns to watch the grooms as they pass his aisle seat, two pensive lines appearing between his eyebrows. But his face brightens so quickly when he looks back at Jack and Rory that Jack thinks he must have imagined it. Harry flashes Rory a thumbs up on their way by.

Jack relaxes as soon as they leave the sanctuary. They made it through the wedding, with no meltdowns or -- Jack bends down to check -- wet pants. “Good ringbearing, bro,” Jack tells him, ruffling his hair. “Do you need to pee?”

Rory ignores him. “Do we get cake now?” He hooks an arm around Jack’s leg and walks in a tight circle around him. Out of everything Jack and Harry told him about the wedding and what to expect and what it means to have good wedding behavior, Rory’s only takeaway was that there will be cake.

“That’s later, after dinner.” Jack watches as Barry and Niall disappear around the corner with Fionn and Willie, following the priest to his study to sign the marriage certificate with their best men. Niall’s photographer friend Conor stays on their heels, snapping away. For a second it’s just Jack and Rory and Tom and Aneurin on one side of the doorway, and Bressie and Deo and Mark on the other, and then guests start to stream into the church hall.

Jack backs Rory out of the traffic flow to wait by a table with a manger scene on top of it. Harry’s easy to spot in his blue suit when he emerges from the sanctuary, as if just being Harry isn’t enough to keep him at the center of Jack’s attention. The suit is practically subdued for Harry’s side of the closet, but still brighter and more double-breasted than anything Jack would put on himself.

“You did so well!” Harry scoops up Rory, who immediately squirms his way back down to the ground and returns to the manger scene. Jack wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulders and kisses the soft spot at the side of his eyebrow.  _ This is enough _ , he reminds himself. Even if it’s not everything, even if it’s not forever, this is enough.

Harry leans into him briefly. “You okay?”

Jack drops his arm and leans over to extract one of the magi from Rory’s clutches. He repositions the figurine by the manger with more precision than necessary. “Yeah, fine.” He’s not going to do this today. Or ever, maybe, but definitely not today.

“He’s going to need something to eat before the reception,” Harry says, gesturing at Rory. “Okay if I take the car while you do photos?”

“How about you just meet us there.” Jack scans the room for Tom’s blonde hair. “I can get a ride.” Tom’s over against the far wall, tucked under Tom Hardy’s arm like a penguin chick. Tom Hardy gives Jack a nod, and Jack cuts toward them, eager to jump on a rare opportunity to observe Tom and Tom in the wild. “Can I ride with you guys?” Jack asks Tom innocently, although his expression says  _ How is your indeterminate boyfriend doing at his first official event? _

Tom and Tom exchange a confirming glance before Tom says “Sure” at the same time Tom Hardy says “Yeah.” Jack adds “silent consensus” to “public affection” on his list of positive signs.

Tom’s been infuriatingly vague about everything related to Tom Hardy since last summer, when Jack accidentally caught sight of a text alert on Tom’s phone that was so scorching he intends to go to his grave without ever admitting to Tom that he saw it. A few weeks later, when Barry and Niall threw a housewarming barbecue at the fixer-upper they bought on the fringes of the city, Tom strolled into the backyard late and a little self-conscious, with Tom Hardy right behind him. (“Is this a thing?” Jack had asked, cornering Tom in the kitchen. Tom ducked neatly past him, saying only, “We’ll see.”)

Tom Hardy’s been around occasionally since then, but Tom’s steadfastly refused to explain anything. So nobody expected it when Barry blew up the group chat with a photo of Tom’s wedding RSVP postcard, listing Tom Hardy as his plus-one. Tom ignored the subsequent flood of question marks and comments about Tom Hardy’s mouth, and even when Jack asked him about it face to face, all Tom said was, “Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?”

But Tom can’t exactly deny him a ride to the reception, and Jack’s going to make the most of what he can observe from ten minutes in the backseat. Companionable bickering about traffic? Tom’s golf clubs in the back of Tom Hardy’s Q5? Tom’s mints in the console? Some hint of who’s spending the night where? He feels no guilt about imposing; Tom’s driven him to this.

“Thanks,” Harry says to the two of them, coming up behind Jack. He bumps his shoulder into Jack’s. “I need your key.”

Jack pats his tuxedo pockets reflexively. “It’s in my bag.” He points Harry down the hallway toward the Sunday school classroom where the groomsmen’s things are stowed (along with an accumulated midden of Coors Light cans that they’re going to have to discreetly smuggle out before the priest sees them). “Side pocket.”

“Great,” Harry says broadly. “See you tonight,” he adds to Tom and Tom, with a sideways smirk at Jack. Harry never tires of casually telling Tom he’ll see him tonight, knowing full well that the oblique reference to Tom Hardy’s text message never fails to make Jack twitch with uncomfortable delight.

Jack gives him a warning look. Harry smiles angelically as he turns to walk away with Rory in tow. 

“He needs to pee,” Jack calls after them, partly because it’s the only way he can think of to wipe the smug look off Harry’s face, but partly because it’s almost certainly true.

Harry shoots him a thumbs up over his shoulder. He and Rory look strangely alike from behind. Same long limbs, same lazy stride, same slope to their shoulders under their bright suit jackets. For a moment Jack just stares, his chest wrapping itself around the image, and then Conor’s calling the wedding party back into the sanctuary and Harry’s gone.

***

The community center where the reception’s being held is on a small lake in a city park. Jack spots Harry at the playground as Tom pulls into the parking lot. Rory and a handful of other kids in wedding clothes and winter coats are climbing on the swingset in the late afternoon sunshine. Harry’s at the edge of the bark-filled playground pit, head bent over his phone.

“We should head inside,” Jack says as he approaches. “They’re doing toasts first thing.”

Harry looks up from his phone, then slides it into his pocket.  “Knock them out before everybody gets drunk?” he asks. “Smart.” He extracts his sunglasses from his hair and tips them down onto his face.

Jack calls for Rory, and calls again when Rory ignores him. As Rory scrambles up to the top of the slide, Jack walks across the playground toward him. “Come on, bud, time to go.”

“Is it time for cake?” Rory peers down at him from the platform. Bits of bark cling to the knees of his velvet pants.

“In a little while,” Jack promises vaguely. “Let’s get in there.” Rory moves close enough to the edge of the platform for Jack to grab him. Once he’s on the ground, Jack takes his hand to discourage any ideas about making a run for it. Rory comes willingly, reaching his other hand up for Harry’s when they get to the edge of the playground.

As they walk toward the community center, they swing Rory off the ground between them. He squeals and tips himself backwards, tucking up his knees to stay airborne as long as possible.

Jack looks at Harry over Rory dangling between them. He’s halfway smiling, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Something about it echoes his fleeting expression from the ceremony earlier. “You okay?”

“Sure,” Harry says, his eyebrows rising above his sunglasses. “Fine.” He lowers Rory back onto his feet and crouches down next to him, where Jack can’t see his face. “You’re a mess, kiddo,” he says to Rory, vigorously brushing bark off of him.

Jack drops Rory’s other hand so Harry can rotate him to get at the bits of bark on the seat of his pants. A moment ago, it seemed like an unseasonably warm day for December, but Jack’s suddenly chilly in his tuxedo jacket. He rubs a palm under his chin, waiting for Harry to finish raking his fingers through Rory’s curls until they achieve Harry’s preferred level of disarray.

The doors of the community center open onto a happy din of clinking glasses and passed mini quiches. Strings of globe lights are suspended between the ceiling beams, and Niall’s carefully curated cocktail hour playlist is barely audible in the background. Rory immediately spots the tiered stand of cupcakes on a table at the side of the room, and Harry darts after him to avert disaster.

Jack stops to check the seating chart posted at the doorway, even though he knows the outcome. He’s already tried and failed to convince Barry that having the three-year-old at the head table with the rest of the wedding party and their dates is a terrible plan. (“You have to sit there, you’re the only other person who knows Tom Hardy,” Barry explained. “And you’re gonna be sad if we put Harry on the other side of the room with your kid… shut the fuck up, you absolutely will... don’t try to argue about it, you’re pathetic.”)

Under the Table 1 heading, the guys are all listed out one by one, most of them without dates. Willie Devine. Mark McDonnell. Jack skims past the rest of Niall’s groomsmen and stops halfway down the list at the entry for Aneurin & Lucy Barnard. Together, on one line, with an ampersand. It looks nice. The names continue line by line after that. Tom Glynn-Carney. Tom Hardy. Jack Lowden. Harry Styles. Rory Styles. No ampersands. It doesn’t even look like Jack belongs with the two of them. He covets Tom and Tom’s aligning names, or Aneurin’s punctuation.

Champagne’s already being handed around as he scans the room for Harry and Rory. Harry’s talking to the bartender, with one elbow on the bar and two champagne flutes cupped in his other hand. As Jack makes his way toward them, the bartender pulls an empty flute out of a crate, fills it halfway with water, and hands it to Harry. Harry gives him a brilliant smile and uses the base of the third nchampagne glass to nudge Rory toward the sprawling head table, dodging wedding guests filtering through the room to their own seats.

“Here we are,” Jack says as he catches up to them at the end of the table, spotting three place cards in a row. Two Styles and then Jack. He sits down and pulls Rory onto his lap, staking his claim.

Harry pushes the second glass of champagne down the table to Jack, and hands the flute of water to Rory. “We’re going to do toasts now,” he tells Rory. “It’s when you clink your glasses together, and then you drink.”

Rory’s glass lists to the side. Jack pushes it back to vertical and scoots Rory’s fingers up the stem. “Here, hold it up, like this.” He steadies Rory’s glass as Harry gently clinks his own against it.

“See?” Harry takes a sip. “Then you drink.”

Rory skips the drink and enthusiastically clashes his glass into Harry’s a second time. Harry rescues the glass from his hands as Barry and Niall enter the room to cheers and applause. “People have to talk first,” Harry tells him, setting Rory’s glass down away from the edge of the table. “First there’s talking, then you clink glasses, then you drink.”

As Barry and Niall make their way to the head table, dispensing fistbumps right and left, Tom and Tom cut around the side of the room to slide into the seats next to Jack. At the edge of the dance floor, Fionn winces at the whine of feedback from the microphone the DJ’s handing him. The room quiets. Fionn waits for the feedback to resolve, and then clears his throat in the silence. “How many people here have been to Mully’s?” 

Approving cheers go up from three tables full of faces that Jack half-recognizes from the pub. All of Niall’s Irish friends look alike.

“For those of you who haven’t,” Fionn says, addressing the other side of the room, “Mully’s is the most disreputable Irish pub in this fair city.” 

“Ah, go on!” A cheerful red-faced guy, who Jack’s seen behind the bar at the pub, gestures dismissively at Fionn as the cheers turn to groans.

“Sorry, Mully,” Fionn adds, unapologetically. “For those of you who don’t know, Mully’s is one of Barry and Niall’s favorite places.” (An approving awwwww issues forth from the pub tables.) “Barry used to make me go with with him every Wednesday. And there was always this guy there, playing the guitar.”

Jack wonders what Calum would say if he ever got the chance to be Jack’s best man. How he’d tell Jack and Harry’s story. Or what Gemma would say, or Nick, or Jeff, or whoever would be standing up on Harry’s side. Jeff, Harry’s best friend from his grad program, didn’t even know Harry before Rory was born. Last year, when Harry and Jeff started texting and working on group projects together and going out for beers after class, Jack was unsettlingly jealous. The feeling vanished about five minutes into their first dinner with Jeff and his girlfriend, replaced by the strange comfort of being unquestioningly accepted as part of Harry’s life. Every new person is another person who’s never known Harry without Jack, another person who can ask how they met and take their boring answer -- “We met at a bar” -- at face value.  

“Then one week this guy’s selling his CDs,” Fionn continues. “And Barry actually bought one.” The pub tables erupt into laughter. “So I’m thinking that I’m going to be stuck going to Mully’s every Wednesday until the end of time so Barry can pine over the pub guitarist.”

Jack leans over to look down the table. Barry’s expression is half resignation, half glee. Niall throws an arm around him, cackling with laughter. Fionn points at them. “Niall -- callously -- had no idea Barry existed.”

Rory shifts on Jack’s lap, reaching for his champagne glass. “Easy,” Jack whispers to him. “I need you to be quiet until it’s time to toast.” Rory squirms and Harry scoots closer, moving from his own seat into Rory’s empty one. He picks up Jack’s butter knife and hands it to Rory in an effort to distract him.

Jack looks at Harry incredulously as Rory stabs at the tablecloth. Harry mouths an apology with a laugh behind it, and looks attentively at Fionn.  

“...Barry never managed to talk to him, because Niall’s always surrounded three deep by his cousins.” Another roar goes up from the pub tables. Fionn peers in their direction. “All of you are cousins, right?” The answering jeers include a couple of responses in the negative. “I’m not sure Niall knows that…” Fionn turns back to the head table. “Niall, do you actually know which of these guys are your cousins?”

“The ugly ones,” Niall calls back, to another roar of good-natured disapproval.

Jack swipes Harry’s butter knife so Rory has one for each hand. Then he moves the champagne glasses out of knife strike range.

“Anyway, so Barry might have listened to Niall’s CD alone in the dark forever,” Fionn continues. “But finally Jack and Harry set them up” --  Fionn tilts his glass toward their end of the table in acknowledgment -- “on the worst double date in history.”

Harry puts one arm around Jack and graciously waves at the room with the other, accepting credit. Rory scrapes their butter knives together. This is what their regrettable golf foursome has aged into, Jack and Harry as side characters to the origin of Barry and Niall. Facilitators of the Mr. & Mr. Horan story, rather than awkwardly fumbling toward their own relationship. Nodding at Fionn, Jack settles back against Harry’s arm and tries to pull Rory further away from the table.

“Nice work, you guys,” Fionn says. He addresses the rest of the room as he points his champagne glass accusatorily at the two of them, and at Rory, who’s now sprawled awkwardly over both of their laps. “Never forget that we are here today not because of Jack and Harry, but in spite of Jack and Harry.” Fionn pauses to let the laughter die down before he delivers the final punchline: “Barry and Niall’s first date will go down as the only day in history that Niall Horan didn’t have a good time on the golf course.”

Harry leans down to whisper at Rory. “You were there, did you know that?” Rory cocks his head up in interest, and Harry explains. “You hadn’t been born yet, but you were there when Uncle Barry and Uncle Niall met each other.” Rory accepts the information without question, and stretches over the table toward his champagne glass. Harry whisks it further out of his way.

“However, Barry did accomplish the most important thing,” Fionn says, “which was getting Niall to follow his Instagram. Anybody who’s Barry’s friend knows that once he decides you’re going to be part of his life, there’s nothing you can do to fight it.” Fionn turns to look at Barry, and Jack suddenly wonders what all of this has been like for Fionn. It’s always been Barry who’s pulled Fionn along, dragging him out of the office and right to the edges of his boundaries, treating him like a best friend until Fionn finally had to give in and be one. Fionn usually gives the impression he can take or leave any of them and Barry most of all, but Barry meeting someone -- marrying someone-- has to have affected Fionn in a way it didn’t affect the rest of their group.

“And a whole lot of wolf emojis later,” Fionn says, to laughter from everyone who knows Barry, “here we are today.” He raises his glass and Harry shuffles Rory’s champagne flute into his hand. Rory looks at Jack and Harry’s glasses, raised to either side of him, and copies their gesture.

“So,” Fionn concludes, “let’s raise our glasses to a lifetime of happiness for Niall... and the only person who’s ever bought his CD.” Jack reaches over Rory’s head to clink his glass against Harry’s. Harry’s smiling as Rory thrusts his glass upwards to connect with both of theirs, and his arm’s warm and reassuring along the back of Jack’s chair, and it’s enough, really it is.

***

Rory nibbles perfunctorily at his dinner before declaring himself done and sliding out of his chair. “I got it, you can eat,” Harry says to Jack before getting up to follow Rory’s circuitous path around the room. Jack tracks their progress for a few minutes before getting absorbed into conversation with Tom and Tom.

When Barry and Niall cut the small cake at the top of the cupcake tiers, Jack looks around again, expecting to see Rory hovering in wait for a cupcake. Instead, he sees a bright blue flash of suit headed out the door. As Jack weaves through the tables to follow Harry, Barry feeds Niall a small, neat bite of cake, and Niall smashes a full cupcake in Barry’s face.

Outside, late afternoon’s turned into early darkness. Someone’s started a fire in the firepit in front of the community center. Niall’s friends are starting to coalesce there, around someone with a guitar. The initial chords threaten Wonderwall. Before the door closes behind him, Jack can hear the DJ encouraging guests onto the dance floor.

Harry’s looking past the fire to the lake, not paying attention to the music. Jack wraps both arms around his shoulders, crushing his boutonniere against Harry’s back. All of Harry’s lines are familiar against him, the points of his shoulders and the dip in his spine and the stray curls that brush the side of Jack’s face as he says, “Hey,” over Harry’s shoulder. 

Harry hooks his hands over Jack’s forearm and leans his cheek against Jack’s. “Hey.”

“Is the kiddo out here?”

“Still inside,” Harry says. “He’s just following Freddie around. We’ll see him from here if they head for the lake.”

“How many cupcakes do you think they’re going to eat?”

Harry snorts. “You wanna fight that battle?”

“Not really.” Too much wedding cake won’t kill the kid, and anyway it would take more than the threat of regrettable cupcake consumption for Jack to leave Harry alone by the lake.

Harry walks a few paces away from the fire, still holding onto Jack’s arm so he’s pulled along awkwardly behind. The guitar fades into the background as they reach the edge of the patio. Across the dark surface of the lake, a row of streetlamps is reflected in the water. 

Jack tightens his arms around Harry, wanting to hold onto the moment, to everything. He can feel the gentle rise and fall of Harry’s breathing, and realizes he’s calmer for having aligned his own to it.

So he notices when Harry takes a deeper breath, just before he says, “Why aren’t we doing this?”

“Doing what?” Jack asks carefully, because he could be wrong. He could want this so much that he’s willing to read it into anything. Harry’s silent for a moment, long enough for Jack to think of at least five other things he should have said.

Harry’s fingers dig into Jack’s arm. “I want to get married.” It’s not wistful, or petulant. Just a statement of fact.

“Is…” Jack tries to respond and has to settle for a couple of short, shallow breaths instead. Harry’s words are filling his chest, leaving no room for air. “Is that a proposal?”

“No,” Harry says, and now he sounds petulant. “It’s an invitation for you to propose to me.”

Jack knows what that means. Harry wants a production. Rose petals and candles, a question piped on top of a cake or lit up on the scoreboard at halftime. But Harry can’t just offer up the possibility of forever, dangle it in front of Jack like it’s his for the asking, and expect that Jack won’t snatch it up on the spot. He could do this better. He should do this better. He realizes he’s holding Harry too tightly, as if he can just absorb him without any need for a proposal. “Will you marry me, then?”

Harry wrenches himself out of Jack’s death grip and turns around to smash the last syllable before Jack makes it to the question mark, his winter-cold hands on both sides of Jack’s face, kissing him fiercely enough to use up what little air Jack has left. He recognizes the familiar sign of Harry’s shaky inhalation. Tears are coming, but Jack should have expected that. He pulls back just enough to see Harry’s face, smiling and shiny-eyed. “Is that a yes?” 

“Yes,” Harry says, emphatically if a bit quivery. “I didn’t mean you had to do it immediately.”

“Sorry.” Jack reaches up to smooth his thumb over the base of Harry’s ring finger, the only empty one in his row of silver rings. He keeps his other arm tight around Harry’s waist. He doesn’t have to let him go, not ever. “I can do it better later.”

“Well, you’re going to have to,” Harry says, as if it’s obvious. He drops his hands from Jack’s face and drapes his arms over his shoulders instead. “‘We can’t just tell people we got engaged at Niall and Barry’s wedding.”

“Oh.” That was exactly what Jack was about to tell people, anyone who’d listen. He was trying to remember the names of Niall’s pub friends -- Jake, John, maybe there’s another Louis? -- so it wouldn’t sound so random when he broke into the circle around the firepit to announce that Harry’s improbably agreed to marry him. “Right.” He looks around to see if anybody’s noticed them. They’re still by themselves, alone overlooking the lake. The circle around the fire is ignoring them. They’re singing something about slow hands.

“How about New Years Eve?” Harry asks.

“Got it all figured out?” Jack kisses Harry again. “You want sparklers? Ring in a champagne glass?”

“Hard to fish it out of the wine.” Harry pauses, a transparent attempt to pretend he doesn’t already have a different answer. “Ring on dessert, maybe?”

Jack wonders if the official proposal is going to make him feel as transcendently happy as he does right now, lightheaded with it, aloft.  Like nothing he’s ever felt before, except, he realizes, once. The night Rory was born. Not when the nurse first deposited the messy collection of spindly limbs and shockingly red hair onto Harry’s chest; not when Harry looked to Jack for confirmation before calling the baby by name for the first time. But later, after all of them were cleaned up, and Jack propped his elbows on the edge of the narrow hospital bed, undeservedly exhausted from eight hours of doing nothing more useful than intermittently reassuring Harry and realizing uncomfortably in hindsight that at some excruciating point his useless chant of, “It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay,” had evolved into “it’s going to be okay, I love you.” All of it felt far away in this quiet moment, with the neatly swaddled baby curled in the crook of Harry’s arm.

“Hey,” Harry murmured to Rory, reverently tracing his fingertip over an eyebrow, the edge of his ear, the bridge of his nose. “Oh, I love you,” he sighed, gazing down at the baby. 

Jack stared at them from the infinite remove of his chair beside the bed, until Harry awkwardly leaned sideways to wrap his other arm around Jack. “And you too,” he said, tugging Jack half onto the bed. “I love you, too.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is not a second chapter. it's more of hidden track. just some bonus smut that explains the text message referenced in the first chapter. enjoy.

“Get this,” Jack says, as they’re making dinner after Rory’s bedtime. “The other Tom, from my team?” 

“Yeah?” Harry doesn’t look up from the tomato he’s slicing.

“There’s something going on with him and Tom.”

“Tom and Tom? That’s funny.” Harry pulls a plate out of the cabinet and arranges the tomato slices in a spiral. “How do you know?”

“Saw a text I wasn’t supposed to see,” Jack says, salaciously.

Harry looks up, eyebrows raised. “Dick pic?”

“No, just…” It would sound ridiculous, here in the kitchen where Jack’s putting a piece of salmon into the oven while Harry tears up basil leaves. “Just a text.”

“What’d it say?”

“I…” Jack closes the oven door. It’s too much. “I can’t even say it.” He rubs one hand against the back of his other arm.

Harry pauses, reaching halfway to the bottle of olive oil. “Now I really want to know.”

“I shouldn’t even have told you.” Jack starts the oven timer for the fish, punching in the numbers slowly and deliberately. “It’s too personal, I feel bad.”

Harry changes tactics. “Which one of them sent it?”

“Tom Hardy.”

“Hmmm.” Harry roots around in the cabinet above the stove. “Hey, are we out of balsamic?”

“You’d know better than me.” Jack opens the refrigerator with relief, taking advantage of the opportunity to steer the conversation in a different direction. “We’re getting low on milk, too.” 

Four hours later, and way too late, Jack realizes Harry has no intention of dropping the subject. Harry’s poised on top of him, letting Jack’s cock slip smooth and easy along the line of Harry’s ass. He wraps his hands around Harry’s hips, trying to shift him to the perfect angle, and Harry leans forward. “What did the text say?”

Jack’s head is thick with how much he wants to be inside of Harry right now, tight and hot and perfect. “What text?”

“The Tom text.” Harry angles his hips so that Jack just catches his rim, slick and open, before sliding past in futility.

Jack hisses. “Can we not talk about Tom... Toms... right now?” He thrusts up and Harry moves with him, staying just out of reach.

Harry leans forward, cock pressing against Jack’s stomach. “Tell me.”

Jack’s made of iron filings reorienting themselves toward a magnet, curling into primal patterns in his belly. “Jesus, you’re the worst.” He drags his hands down either side of Harry’s spine, hard enough for Harry to arch his back into.

Harry traces his tongue around the edge of Jack’s nipple, feather-light, and then catches it in his teeth. He noses his way further up Jack’s chest. “What did it say?”

Jack shivers. Harry can have whatever he wants; he always can. Jack waits until Harry’s forehead is pushed against his neck, teeth grazing over Jack’s collarbones, before he sucks in a breath and quotes, “ _ see you on my cock tonight pretty boy _ .”

“ _ Really _ ?” Harry jerks his head up and looks at Jack, hands braced under the pillow on either side of Jack’s head. Jack nods wordlessly, and Harry sighs. “God, that’s hot.” He straightens up and tips his head back so he’s all throat, a pale lean line in the darkness of the summer night. Jack skims his fingertips down the familiar contours of Harry’s torso and presses his thumbs against his hipbones. This time Harry goes easy under Jack’s hands, sinking down onto his cock with a low moan that Jack can feel in his teeth. As he starts to move, the corners of his mouth turn up smugly. “Say it again,” Harry demands.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://ferryboatpeak.tumblr.com)! i still love messing around in this verse if you have any questions. occasional extras in the tag [ here](http://ferryboatpeak.tumblr.com/tagged/mpreg-jackrry).


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